Franz Mehring on the Second Duma

Written: Written in April 1907
Published:
Published in 1907 in the collection Questions of Tactics, Second Issue. Signed: K. T..
Published according to the text in the collection.
Source:Lenin
Collected Works,
Foreign Languages Publishing House,
1962,
Moscow,
Volume 12,
pages 383-389.
Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2004).
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
Archive” as your source.
• README

Ina recent issue of Die Neue
Zeit,[1]
journal of the German Social-Democrats, there appeared a leading article bearing
the usual mark of its usual leader writer, Franz Mehring. The author notes that
in the usual discussion on the budget the Social-Democratic speakers, Singer and
David, took advantage of the opportunity to prove how steadfastly
Social-Democracy, supposedly defeated at the last elections, is defending its
proletarian position. The German liberals, on the contrary, those who at the
last elections had joined forces with the government against the clerical Centre
and against the Social-Democrats, found themselves in the pitiful position of
humiliated allies of reaction. “The liberal bourgeoisie,” says
Mehring, “are playing the role of an obedient slave [the German
Dirne actually means “prostitute”] of the Ost-Elbe Junkers, for
the sake of pitiful doles given by the latter.”

Wequote these sharply-spoken words verbatim, to give our readers a clear
picture of the difference in tone and content between the Social-Democratic
presentation of the question of the liberals in Germany and the presentation
that is frequently to be met with in the Russian Cadet newspapers. It will be
remembered that those papers sang a quite different tune in respect of the
outcome of the German elections, spoke of the mistakes of the Social-Democrats
who, it was said, had ignored bourgeois democracy and adopted “a one-sided
hostile position” towards it, etc.

Allthis is en passant. What we are interested in here is not
Mehring’s assessment of German liberalism,, but his assessment of the
Russian Duma and Russian liberalism, whose slogans (“Save the
Duma”, conduct “positive work”) he analyses with wonderful
clarity and aptness.

Hereis a complete translation of the second part of the article.

German Liberalism and the Russian Duma

“...To understand the immeasurable insignificance of those
debates[2]
it is worth while glancing back some sixty years to the United Landtag in
Berlin, when the bourgeoisie first girded their loins for the parliamentary
struggle. Even in those days the, bourgeoisie did not cut a heroic figure. Karl
Marx pictured it thus: ’...without faith in itself, without faith in the people,
grumbling at those above, trembling before those below, egoistic towards both
sides and conscious of its egoism, revolutionary in relation to the
Conservatives and conservative in relation to the revolutionists, distrustful
of its own mottoes, phrases instead of ideas, intimidated by the world storm,
exploiting the world Storm; no energy in any respect, plagiarism in every
respect; common because it lacked originality, original in its commonness;
dickering with its own desires, without initiative, without faith in itself,
without faith in the people, without a world-historical calling; an execrable
old man, who saw himself doomed to guide and deflect the first youthful impulses
of a robust people in his own senile interests—sans eyes, sans
ears, sans teeth, sans
everything.’[5]

“Despiteall that, however, the bourgeoisie of that day was able to keep
the purse under its thumb and withhold the incomes of the King and the Junkers
until its own rights were ensured; it preferred to be subjected to the disfavour
of the King rather than surrender its birthright to help the royal
bankrupt.

“Comparedwith the present-day free-thinkers, the liberals of the United
Landtag were much more far-sighted. They laughed at the chatter about ’positive
work’ and preferred
to hold up a matter so important to the welfare of the country as the
building of the eastern railway rather than renounce their constitutional
rights.

“Thereis all the greater reason for recalling those times, since the end
of the budget debate in the Reichstag coincided with the opening of the Second
Russian Duma. There is no doubt that the parliamentary history of the Russian
revolution has so far more closely resembled that of the Prussian revolution of
1848 than that of the French revolution of 1789; the history of the First Duma
in many respects strikingly resembles that of the notorious ’assembly of
conciliators’ that at one time held its sessions in a Berlin theatre, resembles
it
even in respect of the ineffective appeal not to pay taxes, issued by the
Constitutional-Democratic majority after the dissolution, an appeal that
disappeared into thin air. And in Prussia, too, the new Landtag convened by the
government bore a more marked oppositional tinge, like the present Russian Duma,
and was then dispersed a month later by armed force. There is no lack of voices
prophesying a similar fate for the new Russian Duma. The over-wise liberals come
out with the excellent advice: save the Duma, and win the confidence of the
people by ’positive work’. As understood by those who give it this is about the
most foolish advice that could have been offered the new Duma.

“Historydoes not approve of repetition, and the new Duma is a product of a
revolution that differs greatly from the second Prussian Parliament. It was
elected under such pressure that, by comparison, the infamy and baseness of the
’imperial falsehood league’ could well be called mild. The Left is no longer
dominated by the Constitutional-Democrats in the present Duma, but has been
strengthened by a powerful socialist group. Nor is it easy to dissolve the Duma
now. Tsarism would not have engaged in that process of exerting pressure at the
elections, as wearisome as it was disgusting, if the question of the dissolution
of the Duma had depended entirely on the tsarist government. For its creditors,
tsarism needs a popular representation that can save it from bankruptcy, and it
would, furthermore, have been impossible, even if things had not been so bad, to
elaborate a more pitiful electoral system and exercise still more brutal
pressure at the elections.

“Inthat respect Prussian reaction held another big trump card in 1849; by
annulling universal suffrage and introducing the three-class system of
elections, it obtained the so-called popular representation that did not
offer any effective resistance and was nevertheless something in the
nature of a guarantee to the creditors.

“TheRussian revolution has shown, through the elections to the new Duma,
that it has much wider and deeper scope than the German revolution then had. It
is also quite certain that the revolution has not elected the new Duma by
chance, but has every intention of making use of it. But the revolution would be
betraying itself if it were to listen to the wise counsels of the German
liberals, and tried to obtain the confidence of the people by ’positive work’ as
those liberals understood it; if the revolution were to act in that way it
would be taking the same road of lamentation and disgrace that German liberalism
has been following for the past sixty years. That ’which this amazing hero
regards as ’positive work’ would only lead to the new Duma helping tsarism
extricate itself from the clutch of its financial troubles, and would receive in
return a pitiful dole in the shape of such ’reforms’ as the ministry of a
Stolypin can hatch.

“Weshall make clear the concept of ’positive work’ by an historical
example. When the National Assembly effected the emancipation of the French
peasantry in a single summer night in 1789, the mercenary genius and adventurer
Mira beau, constitutional democracy’s most celebrated hero, baptised the
event with the catchword ’disgusting orgy’, but in our opinion it was ’positive
work’. The emancipation of the Prussian peasants, on the contrary, which dragged
along at a snail’s pace for sixty years—from 1807 to 1805—
during which an infinite number of peasant lives were brutally and ruthlessly
sacrificed, was what our liberals call ’positive work’ and proclaim from the
house-tops. In our opinion, that was a ’disgusting orgy’.

“Andso, if the new Duma wants to fulfil its historic task it must
undoubtedly engage in ’positive work’. On this issue there is a gratifying
unanimity. The only question is:
what sort of ’positive work’ is it to be? For our part, we hope that the Duma
will prove to be a weapon of the Russian revolution that gave it birth.”

* * *

Thisarticle of Mehring’s, whether we like it or not, gives rise to some
thinking about the present trends in Russian Social-Democracy.

Inthe first place, we cannot help noting that the author compares the Russian
revolution of 1905 and the following years, to the German revolution of
1848-49, and the First Duma, to the famous “assembly of
conciliators”. This last expression comes from Marx. That is what he
called the German liberals of that day in the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung.[6] This appellation has gone down in history as a model
of proletarian thinking in its assessment of a bourgeois revolution.

Marxgave the name of “conciliators” to the German liberals of the
revolutionary epoch, because bourgeois-liberal political tactics were at that
time based on the “theory of conciliation”, the conciliation of the
Crown with the people, of the old authorities with the forces of the
revolution. These tactics expressed the class interests of the German
bourgeoisie
in the German bourgeois revolution; the bourgeoisie were afraid to carry on the
revolution to its consummation; they feared the independence of the proletariat,
feared the full victory of the peasantry over their medieval exploiters,
the landlords, whose farming still retained many feudal features. The class
interests of the bourgeoisie forced them to come to terms with reaction
(“conciliation”) against the revolution, and the liberal
intellectuals who founded the “theory of conciliation” used it to
cover up their apostasy from the revolution.

Theexcellent passage quoted by Mehring shows how Marx lashed out at bourgeois
conciliation in a revolutionary epoch. Anybody who is familiar with
Mehring’s edition of the writings of Marx and Engels in the forties;
especially the articles from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, knows, of
course, that very many similar passages could be quoted.

Letthose who, like Plekhanov, attempt by reference to Marx to justify the
tactics of the Right wing of the Social-Democrats in the Russian bourgeois
revolution give this some thought! The arguments of such people are based on
ill-chosen quotations; they take generalisations on support
for the big bourgeoisie against the reactionary petty bourgeoisie and apply
them uncritically to the Russian Cadets and the Russian revolution.

Mehringprovides such people with a good lesson. Anybody who wants Marx’s
advice on the tasks of the proletariat in the bourgeois revolution should take
precisely his statements concerning the epoch of the German bourgeois
revolution. It is not for nothing that our Mensheviks so timidly avoid those
statements. In them we see the most complete and most clear expression of that
ruthless struggle against tile bourgeois conciliators that our Russian
Bolsheviks are con ducting in the Russian revolution.

Atthe time of the German bourgeois revolution Marx considered the basic tasks
of the proletariat to be—carrying on the revolution to its consummation,
the winning of the leading role by the proletariat, the exposure of the
bourgeois conciliators’ treachery and the capture of the masses of the people,
especially the
peasantry,[3]
from the influence of the bourgeoisie. This is an
historic fact that can be ignored or evaded only by those who take Marx’s
name in vain.

Mehring’sassessment of “positive work” and “disgusting
orgy” has an intimate, inseverable connection with this.

Thisparallel of his is such a well-aimed thrust at the Russian liberals, the
Cadets, who are now engaged in the Second Duma in approving the budget of the
military-court-backed autocracy, that Mehring’s words would only be
weakened if anything of substance were added to them.

Wecounterpose Mehring’s presentation of the question to that of the Right
wing of the German Social-Democrats. Readers will, of course, know that Mehring
and the entire editorial board of Die Neue Zeit are on the side of
revolutionary Social-Democracy. The opposite or opportunist stand is held by
the Bernsteinians. Their chief press organ is Sozialistische
Monatshefte. In the last issue of that journal (April 1907) there is an
article by
Mr. Roman Streltzow entitled “The Second Russian Parliament”. The
article is overflowing with wrathful mouthings against the Bolsheviks, whom the
author, apparently for greater venom, calls
"Leninians”. How conscientious this Streltzow is in keeping the
German public informed, can be seen from the fact that he quotes the sharpest
passages from Lenin’s pamphlets written at the time of the St. Petersburg
elections, but keeps silence about the treacherous split
arranged by the Mensheviks, the split which caused the struggle

Butall this is en passant. What is important to us is the way the
question is presented in principle by the Bernsteinian. The Mensheviks,
especially Plekhanov, come in for praise as the realist wing
of Russian Social-Democracy. Vorwärts, central organ of German
Social-Democracy, has been reprimanded by the “realist” for a
sentence to the effect that the people have not sent advocates
(Fürsprecher) but leading fighters (Vorkämpfer) to
the Second Duma—“Vorwärts apparently has the same rosy view
of the present situation in Russia as the Leninians” (p. 295 of the
above-mentioned
issue).[4]
The author’s conclusion is clear and definite. “Therefore,” he
writes, in concluding his article,
“saving the Duma [Erhaltung der Duma] is so far the purpose of
the opposition taken as a whole.” Further—the socialists must not
“waste their forces in a completely useless struggle against the
Cadets” (p. 296, ibid.).

Wewill leave it to our readers to make the comparison between Mehring’s
way of thinking about the “disgusting orgy” and the Streltzows’ way
of thinking about the “Save the Duma” slogan.

Sucha comparison is well capable of replacing commentaries on the Bolshevik
and Menshevik policies in the present Duma—commentaries on the Bolshevik
and Menshevik draft resolutions on the attitude to the State Duma.

Notes

[3]
“The German bourgeoisie will betray their natural allies, the
peasantry,” said Marx in 1848, in assessing the role of the peasantry
in the bourgeois
revolution.[7]—Lenin

[4]
Incidentally, it may be worth while adding that we are, in any case,
profoundly and heartily grateful to Mr. Streltzow for his effort to
denigrate the Bolsheviks in the eyes of German
Social-Democracy. Mr. Streltzow does this so well that we could not wish
for a better ally for the propagation of Bolshevism among German
Social-Democrats. Keep it up, Mr. Streltzow!—Lenin

[6]Neue Rheinische Zeitung (New Rhenish Gazette) was
published in Cologne from June 1,1848 to May 19, 1849, Marx and Engels being the
chief collaborators, the former the editor-in-chief. The news paper ceased to
exist after the publication of No. 301, owing to persecution by the
reactionaries. (See Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow,
1958, pp. 328-37.)

“Assemblyof conciliators” was the name Marx gave to the
Frankfurt parliament convened in Germany in May 1848. (See Marx Engels-Lenin,
Zur deutschen Geschichte, 5. 302.)